Strangers Return Us Home

Truth in Fiction

I came across this story going through writing from a couple year ago. Leo was eight at the time. It is fascinating to me how certain moments in time are timeless. This particular story is as impactful today as it was then.

It rings true the way certain songs do. Different at different points in life. But always resonating with the same internal chord of truth.

Here is the story.

My son Leo asks if we could read to each other from his book, The One and Only Ivan. I scan the internal to do list. Long as a parade. Productive as a dead end. I agree. We cozy up on the couch under a faux fur throw.

I begin.

It breaks down like this:

Stella, the older elephant trapped in her barred domain, gets sick one night. The store owner, who purchased her, doesn’t want to pay a vet but decides if she is still sick in the morning, he will. That night she asks Ivan, the gorilla, if he will make her a promise.

If she goes, will he save Ruby, the baby elephant captured after her family had been slaughtered?

He agrees. Stella goes.

I am weeping. Cannot read anymore. I need to shower and get ready for work: Leo for school. My mom died two years ago next month. It is like yesterday most days.

“What are you thinking Mom,” Leo asks.

“Well,” I say trying to gather myself, “I bet in the next chapters Ivan is going to have to grow into a new version of himself. Even though he is an adult and a bit crusty, he’s going to have to become the one and only Ivan, he never knew he’d be able to be.”

Leo is looking at me directly, listening, hugging the oblong pillow to his chest, unaware of his bedhead hair or sweet freckles.

He knows this is big.

He always knows when there is more at stake.

“Not the store performer Ivan,” I continue, “but the one he has inside. And he’s going to have to be truly brave because they are all behind bars and he has no idea how he is going to free Ruby, much less himself.”

Leo nods.

I can feel him waiting for the point.

The other point.

“It’s a strange irony Leo that sometimes, someone has to die, like Gran or Stella, in order for the people closest to them to grow into their most powerful selves.”

He leans over, hugs me. He can feel we have closed a loop, even if he doesn’t know why or how, he knows when a feeling has come full circle.